The End of the Line
by Supernoodle
Summary: Post - CA: The Winder Soldier angst-fest, starting on the banks of the Potomac and featuring all our favourite Avengers, plus a sprinkling of the rest of the gang - because where the hell were they all? Steve's been through a lot in the past few years, but is this finally the end of the line? Hurt!Steve (obviously), Angsty!Natasha, Anxious!Tony and Awesome!Sam.
1. Chapter 1

_**I didn't really like The First Avenger that much when I first saw it, in fact, I'm pretty sure I fell asleep. I mean, it was okay, but the Red Skull was a bit stupid, and I wasn't overly sure about Chris Evans (who I have always sort of liked) playing another Marvel superhero, seeing as he was already The Human torch and all, so when The Winter soldier came out, I was all like, "yeah, looks okay, lets give it a go" - little did I know what that movie would do to me.**_

 _ **Oh the squeee, the angst, and Chris Evans' sad puppy-dog eyes... I have had to express all my feels using the medium of fanfiction, and of course, it has taken me this long to get something out as I'm the world's slowest writer.**_

 _ **Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy this angst-fest of a Post Winter Soldier story - if you haven't seen the movie yet this fic is full of spoilers, and why are you even reading it?**_

 _ **Hope you Enjoy!**_

 _ **Supernoodle x**_

 _ **20th June 2015**_

* * *

 **The End of the Line**

 **-o-**

"Breathe, Cap." Sam yells, fumbling with the fiddly hook and eye fastenings at the neck of Steve's uniform jacket. His hands are slick with mud from the riverbank and shaking badly, partly from the cold, partly from adrenaline. It's making a tricky task about a thousand times harder, and he curses the fact that there wasn't any Velcro in the 1940s.

"C'mon, Man. Don't do this."

The blood streaked water that spills from Steve's blue lips is the only reply. His face, underneath all the cuts and welts and bruising, is bone white.

 _Do all you can do for the red white and blue._

Sam's going to do all he can do. He's not going to let Captain America die on the banks of the Potomac. Not on his watch. They've just saved the future of the human race, if they can do that, he can damn well save one near indestructible super-soldier.

He can save his friend.

Sticking two fingers under Steve's jaw, he feels for a pulse and after what feels like one of the longest moment of his life, Sam finds the faintest of heartbeats – and he can almost hear Riley's voice in his ear as he fights off the panic that will render him useless if he gives in to it.

 _Whilst there's a heartbeat, Sammy, there's hope_.

Riley never left a man behind, he never once gave up on someone, and tilting Steve's chin up, he pinches his nose shut and blows half a dozen desperately needed breaths down his throat.

"C'mon Cap!" Sam yells again. "You need to breathe now!"

He can hear Natasha's voice crackling through his earpiece, but can't make out what she's saying. He just hopes she's bringing the cavalry, because he might have had the wings back and a weapon in his hands again, but he's not that guy any more. He's not Sergeant Wilson of the 58th Pararescue squadron – he's just plain old Sam now. Sam from the VA. He's not sure he can do this by himself.

"Steve… _Please_ …"

He forces another few breaths down Steve's throat, feels for his pulse again – it's so faint he wonders if he's actually imagining it, but just as he goes in for another breath, Steve jerks beneath him and heaves up about a gallon of murky river water. Sam's never felt so relieved in his life.

"That's it, big guy. Get it out." He soothes, and as carefully as he can, he drags Steve over onto his side, mindful of whatever injuries are hidden underneath his blood-stained combat suit – because on top of everything else he's been through today, falling three hundred feet into a river from a burning airship is going to cause some damage, no matter how juiced-up you might be. But everything else can be dealt with once he manages to get Steve breathing. No matter what, a casualty's airway always takes priority.

Steve is shuddering beneath his hands, choking and gasping as his body fights between trying to get the water out and pulling air in, and for a horrible few moments, Sam actually thinks he's watching Captain America die right before his eyes.

"Don't do this, Cap…" He pleads, wiping Steve's face as he vomits up more foamy, blood streaked river water, and just as Sam decides to start the rescue breathing again, Steve manages to drag in a wet, rattling breath, followed by another and then another, and after a few moments, his eyes flutter open – well, one does, the other is almost completely swollen shut.

"Buck?…" he gasps before going back to the important business of coughing more water out on to the mud and Sam crouches down so Steve can see clearly that it's him. "It's me, Cap. It's Sam. Bucky isn't… Bucky's not here."

He's not entirely sure what went down in that Helicarrier, he knows Steve had been forced to go through The Winter Soldier, to go through what was left of the man who was once his best friend in the whole world, to take down them down, and by the looks of his battered face, it had been a hard won fight. But Steve had been unconscious when he'd found him, laying lifelessly in the mud like someone had just dragged him out of the river and left him there, and there could have only been one person who could have managed that.

Maybe Steve had got through to him after all? Maybe at the very last minute The Winter Soldier had remembered who he really was and had decided to save his friend rather than kill him? Maybe that was the first decision James Buchannan Barnes had got to make for himself in over seventy years. He hoped so, for all their sakes, but especially for Steve. He knows full well how much it hurts to lose your best friend. He can't even begin to imagine what a knife to the guts it must be to have that friend come back from the dead as some kind of mindless killing machine intent on executing you and everyone else you hold dear.

"Natasha!" Sam yells into his com, hoping to god she can hear him better than he can hear her. "I found him."

"I have your position, Sam." Natasha's voice crackles in his ear. "We're about two minutes out… How bad?"

"Not sure yet." Sam replies. He's not really had much of a chance to check over Steve to see what they were dealing with and he begins a quick field exam. Making a mental checklist of everything he finds, starting with Steve's screwed up eye - definitely a fractured eye socket or cheekbone there. Then moving down, he finds the stab wound to Steve's shoulder. It's bleeding sluggishly and looks deep but that's really the least of his problems right now. As he moves lower, he finds the purple stain on the front of Steve's combat jacket and his heart sinks, and it's at that moment that he realises that it's not just mud that's he's kneeling in, it's blood - Steve's blood. And it's everywhere.

"Is he alive, Sam?" Natasha asks, and he can hear the worry in her voice.

Sam yanks open Steve's jacket and pulls up the bloody mess that was once the grey t-shirt that he had given Steve to wear from his own closet that very morning - _how could it have only been that morning?_ There he finds the ragged hole in the middle of Steve's belly, which looks an awful lot like an exit wound. "Dammit, Cap." He sighs. This was bad... So _very_ bad, and leaning over him, Sam pulls up the jacket and shirt from Steve's back and there's the neat little bullet-hole that he was hoping he wouldn't see.

" _Wilson?"_ Natasha yells, followed by something in Russian that Sam can't understand but knows full well is cursing.

"Yeah, he's alive." He yells back into his com. "But you need to get here now!"

Sam doesn't really know how "super" Steve is. He knows the legend - Captain America, the soldier with the strength of half a platoon of fighting men, the man with the plan who can bench-press 1,200lb and who single-handedly rescued nearly the whole of the 107th Infantry from the clutches of the Red Skull. And he's seen for himself how strong he is, how unbelievably fast, but he doubts very much that Steve has any more blood to spare than the average guy. Sam is used to seeing combat injuries. Used to seeing good guys riddled with bullets and torn up by shrapnel. It was his job, or at least it used to be. But back then he had a full field kit with him, dressings, tourniquets, fluids, morphine... But more importantly, he had Riley by his side and the rest of their unit at his back. Right now he has nothing. Nothing to use to try keep Steve's blood inside his body other than Steve's own combat suit, so Sam gently rolls him over onto his back again and pulls the sturdy fabric of his jacket as tightly around his abdomen as he can.

Steve groans through gritted teeth, the pain of Sam's jostling bringing him round a little more, and he tries to push Sam away, but there's no strength behind the attempt and Sam takes hold of his hand. "Hey, relax, big guy. I got you. Everything's gonna be okay now." And while he had no idea if this was true or not, the immediate threat was neutralised, the Helicarriers were now nothing more than a smoking pile of wreckage in the middle of the Potomac and Steve was just about breathing still. Whatever came next could be dealt with by whatever people were left. They had done their bit. Done it a thousand times over and then some.

Folding Steve's shaking hands under his own, Sam applies pressure where he approximates the bleeding hole in Steve's belly to be and the soldier goes rigid beneath him, his face turning from bone white to an awful ashen grey and he lets out such an anguished cry that Sam feels like screaming right along with him. He hadn't known Steve long, but that didn't matter – you only had to be around him for five minutes to know what a good guy he was, how much he just wanted to help people, to do the right thing, even if it killed him. He didn't deserve any of this.

"I'm sorry, man." Sam tells him. "I know this hurts, but you just gotta hold on a little while longer, okay? That crazy redhead is on her way." And peering over his shoulder, he sees a helicopter flying through the smoke filled haze towards them and realises he's never been so glad to see something in his whole life.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Seeing as I started writing this fic before I saw Age of Ultron (spoilers ahead), we're going to pretend that stuff that we found out about Clint hasn't happened. This is my universe for a while and in my universe, the whole farmhouse thing and everything that goes along with said farmhouse, has never happened. And neither has Nat and Bruce. Cuz WHATWEREYOUTHINKINGJOSS?**_

 _ **I was soooo looking forwards to Age of Ultron and to say I felt let down by it is a bit of an understatement, so just to clarify, this fic is set just after The Winter Soldier in a universe where Age of Ultron never happens. So however you feel about these characters now, dial back a couple of films, because that's where they are right now.**_

 _ **Oh and thanks so much for the reviews. Means a lot to me xx**_

* * *

"What are you looking for?" Pepper asks for the twentieth time as Tony frantically pulls out drawer after drawer in Bruce's lab. Technically it was still Tony's lab, the whole building belonged to Tony, but it was the workspace that Bruce had pretty much taken over since moving into Stark Tower and so the label had kind of stuck.

Whilst it wasn't official, since New York, Bruce Banner had practically moved into the Tower full time, which, Pepper knew, was pretty much what Tony had been hoping for. Although he hadn't so much come out and said it, remodelling the Tower so that each member of the Avenger Initiative had their own suite and giving them all an open invitation to stay in said suite whenever they liked, was kind of a giveaway.

So far, Bruce had been the only real taker, and while Pepper didn't see that much of him - he spent most days in his lab and pretty much kept to himself, she could see how much Tony liked having a kindred spirit around. He finally had someone to talk _science_ with. Bruce was also one of the few people who could relate to what Tony been through in New York.

Pepper hadn't realised how hard it had hit Tony. How much he'd struggled to process what had happened that day. Tony was, both literally and figuratively, a genius when it came to building ostentatious, impenetrable defences around himself, but still. She knew Tony better than anyone, she had been by his side through the worst life had to throw at him and had seen him pick himself up and dust himself off every time. On the outside, nothing fazed him. Everything just bounced off his defences, and if something did ever get bad enough to knock him down, he just used it as fuel and came back stronger than ever. But everyone had limits - even a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropists. The forty or so new suits he'd built since New York were a pretty huge wall to hide behind and she felt terrible that she hadn't realised just how much Tony was struggling.

So having Bruce around was good for Tony, and so far, good for Bruce too. The Tower had become kind of a sanctuary. Somewhere safe for him to live and work in peace. A place where even the army wouldn't dare to turn up uninvited, and as yet, despite Bruce's initial concerns about a certain angry green visitor turning up uninvited too, they had been Hulk free.

Clint Barton was another frequent guest, often arriving without announcement and leaving for one top secret S.H.I.E.L.D mission or another without goodbyes. Clint had his own apartment somewhere, presumably, but liked to declare loudly that there was _"no-one to stock the refrigerator at home",_ and that Tony _"always bought in the good stuff"_. Tony groaned and grumbled and complained loudly in return, but Pepper knew that really, Tony didn't mind one bit. He did always buy the good stuff, and he didn't begrudge anyone a single thing. Tony Stark was many things, but cheap was not one of them.

Thor spent most of his time on Earth with Jane Foster down in New Mexico, but there had been the odd time when he had stayed at the Tower - mostly when Jane and Eric Selvig were away working as he didn't really have anywhere to go. It wasn't like the God of Thunder was really going to be checking himself into a Holiday Inn any time soon. Pepper liked Thor. He was unreserved and gregarious, and completely without agenda which was such a breath of fresh air, and while she was quickly getting used to having the others around the place, she thought she would never get used to the sight of a real life, freshly-showered god wandering round the hallways of her home dressed in nothing but a small towel and a friendly smile.

Modesty was more of a human trait than Asgardian, it seemed, but it was only Tony who seemed to mind. Pepper had no problem whatsoever with Thor making himself entirely at home in the Tower.

The only two Avengers who hadn't used their suites so far were Steve Rogers, who was currently using a S.H.I.E.L.D apartment in D.C. as his base, and Natasha Romanoff.

Steve and Tony hadn't had the most auspicious of starts to their working relationship and although on much better terms now, they still didn't always see completely eye to eye. The handful of times Pepper had spent any time with Steve, she had found him dry-humoured and amiable, and polite to a fault – although everyone seemed polite compared to Tony - and she'd thought that it would actually do him good to spend some time at the Tower, to have a little down-time. He'd been through a lot, they all had, but Steve had pretty much had his whole world ripped from under him and although she knew he was a battle-hardened soldier, had lived through the Second World War and survived all the horrors that had thrown at him, in reality, he wasn't really much more than a kid. A sweet-hearted, endlessly brave kid who had lost everything and everyone who had ever meant anything to him, and Pepper's heart ached for him.

Then there was Natasha.

Pepper hadn't forgiven her yet, nor was she looking to any time in the future. She knew it had been Natasha's mission to recruit Tony. She had only been following orders. But Pepper had trusted her, _confided_ in her, and after what had happened with Obadiah, Pepper found it very difficult to forgive such brazen deceitfulness.

"Tony. Please just stop for a minute!" Pepper cries, and in reply Tony pushes past her like she's not even there and heads for another work station. He's been like this for days, ever since he found the HYDRA data from the original Helicarrier he's been like a man possessed, barely sleeping, surviving on protein bars and coffee - working frantically around the clock in a desperate attempt to get at least one of his proto-type suits operational, and Pepper feels like screaming. It's her fault - well, not _all_ her fault, and it was all mostly justified, but he blew up the suits for her. Tony destroyed his life's work and left his team-mates exposed and vulnerable all because she didn't understand what he was going through, and now they desperately needed him, and he couldn't help. And now Tony won't let her help him either.

He may not have a working suit, but he's sure got his armour back on, and Pepper wonders if he'll ever take it off again.

"Tony, _please._ Tell me what you are looking for."

Tony stops for a moment and Pepper thinks that she's finally got through to him, realising how wrong she was when he mutters something about a bathroom cabinet and walks straight past her and out into the hallway.

Surveying the mess that Tony has left behind, she swallows hard against the lump in her throat. They've been trying to get hold of the others for days, and then JARVIS showed them the reports of Director Fury's shooting. Half an hour ago she watched the news reports of the three Helicarriers shooting themselves down above the Triskellion building in D.C. with Tony hyperventilating by her side, gripping her hand so tightly she feared he might break her fingers, but even that wasn't the worst of it. Soon after came the footage of a body falling hundreds of feet from the smoking wreckage of the last crippled Helicarrier. A body clad in a red, white and blue uniform...

Sitting down on an overturned crate, Pepper rests her head in her hands and tries her hardest to not to let herself get swept away in the whirlwind of what was happening around her - she was the calm one, the port in the storm. Steadfast, reliable Pepper. If she couldn't be this, she was no use to Tony. No use anyone.

"Miss Potts?" JARVIS's voice calls quietly and pepper sighs. "What now?"

"Colonel Rhodes has just arrived at the penthouse." The A.I tells her.

"Thank God." Pepper replies. "Let him in." And getting to her feet she begins picking her way through the mess that Tony has made of the lab and heads towards the elevator. The Tower had been on lockdown since Tony had found the data, no-one in, no-one out, but if anyone could stop Tony going into a full meltdown, Rhodey could.

Rhodey had the one thing Tony needed more than anything.

Rhodey had an operational suit.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Wow! That was hard work - sorry for the wait. This fic is harder to write than I thought it would be... I've also watched Age of Ultron again since I wrote the last chapter and have come to terms a little more with what Joss did with Natasha, so maybe she a little bit softer in this chapter than I originally planned. She's a tough gal to write!**_

* * *

"Hey, _Hey!_ You can't go in there!" the blue scrubbed nurse yells as Tony walks past him wearing the War Machine armour, and when Tony doesn't stop, the nurse hits an alarm button on the wall beside the desk.

"I have a pass." Tony tells him, priming the suit's shoulder canons. "And I have a friend back there who's waiting on an urgent delivery... Well, I say _friend,_ but I mean, well, we don't really hang out or anything. Come to think of it, I don't think he really likes me all that much..."

The nurse doesn't reply, he's too busy eyeballing the weapons array pointed at his head, and a moment later, the double doors open and Tony is greeted by half a dozen armed MPs, all grim faced, their rifles pointed at _his_ head. Obviously they would be no match for War Machine, but he's not here to fight anyone, he's only here to help.

"Stand down, guys. I come in peace." Tony tells them, holstering the weapons again, and he puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender and opens the faceplate.

"Mr Stark?" One of the MPs says in surprise, tentatively lowering his weapon.

"Guilty." Tony replies, flashing his most winning smile. "Now I'd love to stay and shoot the breeze with you fine upstanding patriots, but I really do have to give something to someone. You seen a seven foot tall blond-haired boy-scout, or a scary little red-head, about yay high, stalking about in the shadows back there?"

The MPs look at each other, unsure what to do. It was Tony Stark: National Hero standing before them, and to top that, he was wearing the Iron Patriot suit. But after what had happened they were taking no chances. S.H.I.E.L.D was no more. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D had never really been. HYDRA agents were everywhere.

"We can't let you through, Mr Stark. We have orders."

"Fine." Tony replies with a shrug and walking back to the reception desk, he wheels the nurse and his chair out of the way and pushes the intercom button. "Paging Dr. Romanoff. Paging Dr. Romanoff..."

The MPs look at each other uncertainly and Tony takes their hesitance as a sign they aren't going to try to shoot him. Bending down, he speaks into the intercom again. "Will Natalia Romanova come to the front desk, her pizza is here."

Just as he takes his finger off of the button, the doors open again and a furious and very dishevelled looking Black Widow pushes her way through the MPs, and Tony swallows the complaint about his welcoming committee that was about to spill from his lips. Natasha looks terrible. She's filthy, covered in mud and soot and what looked suspiciously like fresh blood.

"Stand down, you morons. You can see who it is," she snaps at the guards. He can see tight lines of exhaustion and pain etched into her features and he catches himself reaching out to her with some sort of awkward reassuring gesture. Then her stony glare is turned on him and his reaching hand immediately drops back to his side. Tony is not a hugger, and neither, he supposes, is the Black Widow. But she sure looks like she needs a hug right now, or a drink - or both. He could definitely use a drink."

"What are you doing here, Stark?"

Tony looks around theatrically and whispers, "I heard there's some shit that needs avenging." And when Natasha doesn't respond in any way, not even with the dismissive eye-rolling that usually comes after every word he ever says to her, he gestures to the corridor behind. "I just watched three S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarriers fall from the sky, Romanoff. I think we need to talk."

Natasha peers up at him and he can almost see the conflict in her as she decides whether to trust him or turn him away. He knows she's never been his number one fan, and he's okay with that, _mostly_ okay, but this is important and he hopes that when it comes to the important things in life, people do actually take him seriously. If they don't, he has a suit full of weapons to convince them just how serious he can be.

 _Had_... He keeps forgetting. He _had_ a suit full of weapons. Had forty-three of them to be precise, which, he will admit, was a little excessive. But now all he has, despite working flat out of two days straight, is a barely functioning prototype and this loaner.

"Fine." Natasha sighs, and she turns on her heels and heads back into the corridor, gesturing for Tony to follow her.

"Excuse me, boys." Tony says, pushing the MPs aside as carefully as he can, giving them a little salute as he leaves them behind and follows Natasha round the corner. When they are mostly out of earshot, he stops and waits for her to notice he's not actually following behind her any more. It might have all been japes a moment ago, but nothing that has happened over the past three days is even remotely funny. He needs answers and he needs them now.

When she finally stops and turns back to look at him, Tony waves an all encompassing arm in the air. "What the _FUCK,_ Romanoff?

"I know...But not now, Stark." Natasha sighs.

"Not now?... Not _NOW?_ I think now is pretty much the perfect time to tell me just what the hell is going on, Natasha. I found the data."

"What data?"

"When you first took me to the Helicarrier, back before New York, I put bugs on every damn computer I could. And you know what I found?"

"HYDRA?" Natasha replies, and Tony nods.

"Dammit, Natasha. I found it. I found everything. All the dirty, dark little secrets HYDRA had tried so hard to keep."

Natasha shrugs. "Yeah, well you're about three days too late to do anything with it." And she turns to carry on down the corridor, but Tony grabs her arm, ignoring the flash of murder in her eyes.

"You don't get to look at me like that, Romanoff." Tony snaps. For once, none of this is his fault and he's getting pretty tired of all this top secret spy shit. They're meant to be on the same team, a team that she helped drag him into, and the fact that neither she nor Steve for that matter, thought to ask him for help, with what is turning out to be a pretty dark hour of need, stings a little.

"Nat, I've been going out of my goddamn mind trying to find some way to stop all this. As soon as I found the data I tried to contact you and Rogers. I know I can trust Cap, and out of everyone, I knew you would know what to do with what I found, but by then, you two had fallen off the grid. Then I tried to get hold of Thor, but he's been off world for weeks. Bruce is in a jungle in India healing the sick or something... I have no idea where Barton is. Then the next thing I hear is that Fury has been murdered in Cap's apartment by some crazy Soviet relic with a metal arm- "

"He's not Russian." Natasha interrupts. "They call him The Winter Soldier, but his real name is James Buchanan Barnes."

Tony stops his rant for a moment as his sleep-deprived, adrenaline soaked brain tries to remember why he should know that name. And then he remembers. "Bucky Barnes? _Steve's Bucky?_... The bested friend a boy ever had?"

Natasha smiles bitterly. "Not anymore."

That little revelation takes some of the wind out of his sails as he tries to figure out how a long-dead war hero could have been responsible for Fury's murder, but decides that question can go to the back of the long queue of questions, including the one he'd been desperate to ask since he'd first turned up at the hospital. The one he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to.

"Where is he, Romanoff?"

"Who?" Natasha replies, staring blankly at him and Tony groans through gritted teeth and fights the urge punch a hole through the wall next to him. He came here for answers and all he's getting are more questions.

" _Rogers_ , Natasha." He yells at her. "Where the hell is Rogers?" And when she flinches at his anger, it suddenly dawns on Tony that she's not being her usual deliberately oblique self, skirting around questions to confuse and befuddle. She's actually in shock. He knows her story, as much as anyone really knew Black Widow's story, and what he knows is that since leaving the KGB, S.H.I.E.L.D had been her whole life, her whole reason for being, and he also knows exactly how much it sucked when the people you thought were family pretty much just wanted you dead.

Natasha sits down heavily on one of the orange plastic chairs that line the corridor. "Steve's back there," she sighs, gesturing towards the doors marked EMERGANCY. She doesn't look where she points, her gaze remains firmly glued to the floor tiles by her feet like it's suddenly become the most interesting floor tile in the world. "He was on the last carrier when it went down. He gave Hill the order to fire himself."

With those words, Tony feels everything inside him constrict into a hard, icy little ball of terror and if he hadn't been wearing War Machine, he's not sure his legs would still be holding him upright. He had watched the news footage of the body falling hundreds of feet from the flaming airship into the river, watched it a hundred times until Pepper made him stop, and yet had still managed to convince himself that it wasn't Rogers. Because, _how_ could it be Rogers? – Sure, he had that whole history of heroic self-sacrifice. Going down in a blaze glory seemed to be his _thing,_ but still...

It takes a good few moments before he can work up enough spit in his suddenly desert-dry mouth to enable him to say anything and when he can all he can manage is a wheezy stutter. "Is he... Is..."

"He's still alive, Tony. Just about." Natasha replies and he ejects breathlessly from War Machine, leaving the armour standing over them like a star-spangled sentinel. It's easier to suck in some air out of the suit, but not by much, and unsure how long his legs will hold him upright, he drops down beside her in the neighbouring chair. Steve was as tough as they came, both physically and mentally, but at the end of the day, for all his grit, determination and good old fashioned star-spangled patriotism, he wasn't a god or an indestructible rage monster. Steve was just a guy.

"How bad are we talking here?"

"Umm, pretty bad." Natasha replies, still not looking up from the floor. "He had to go through Barnes to take the Helicarriers down. Barnes didn't go down easy."

"Sonovabitch." Tony murmurs.

"That's not the worst of it." Natasha continues and Tony can't help but laugh. Of course there was more. Steve Rogers never did anything by half.

"Barnes shot him four times... One of the rounds went right through him. Hit his liver or spleen or something else that bleeds a lot. He needs surgery. They need to open him up, there's too much damage for him to heal on his own but they don't have any drugs strong enough to knock out Captain America. The doctors have flat out said they can't operate on him while he's awake. They've given him massive doses of everything they have and it's barely even touching him. His body is on over-drive right now, he's just burning though it all."

It's only then that her voice breaks and when she finally looks up at him, he can see the defeat in her eyes. Tony is taken aback. He wasn't sure that the Black Widow was even capable of tears, yet here she was, about to lose her shit in public. "Steve's so strong, Stark. But even he can't take that much pain..."

Tony takes a deep breath and straightens up. "It'll be okay. I can fix this," he tells her, and getting to his feet, he reaches over and opens the panel in War Machine where the vial of Bruce's dendrotoxin was stashed and hands it to her. There was a problem, and he had the solution. Fixing things is what he did.

Natasha just stares at the vial of purple liquid in her hand. "What is this?"

"It's dendrotoxin. _Bruce's_ dendrotoxin" He tells her and when he realises that she still has no idea what he was talking about, he elaborates. "It's like Hulk roofies. If anything can knock out Cap, _this_ will. Bruce and I have been working on this for a while now, you know, just in case Mr Green ever overstays his welcome. Bruce thought there was a chance it could come in handy one day for Steve."

Natasha looks from the vial to Tony, confused, and he reaches over and takes it off her again. He and Bruce had both realised a while back that along with booze, threats, most form of coercion, bribery and just plain teasing, painkillers didn't seem to have much effect on Steve Rogers. The Avengers hadn't assembled many times, but when they did, it was for something either ridiculously big or incredibly bad, and even thought their team was made up of a real-life, practically Immortal God, a giant green monster and a couple of Black-Op assassins, they didn't always come out completely unscathed. Especially Steve, who seemed to feel the need to literally throw himself into the crosshairs of every big bad they came across.

"I read all my dad's old files on Project Rebirth, a dozen times over, and Bruce practically knows them all off by heart. Fascinating work. I think Erskine was probably even smarter than my old man... But the thing is, after Erskine's death, no-one really seemed to think about the fact that they had created a front-line soldier, a damn human shield, who was impervious to anaesthetics. What if he'd had a leg blown off in occupied France or something? They couldn't have even given him booze to dull the pain."

Natasha nods. "Fury knew it might be a problem. He had people working on it."

"Oh really? What people might they be? And were they working on it whilst Steve was out in the field again, risking life and limb running STRIKE missions with you and Barton?"

"No-one forced him to join the STRIKE team, Stark. He volunteered."

"Well that sounds like a familiar story, doesn't it? Young Steve Rogers risks his life signing up for a top secret mission? All you people keep doing is enabling his death wish."

"Steve doesn't have a death wish."

"No?" Tony replies and Natasha opens her mouth to argue, then shuts it again. Steve was the most reckless person she had ever worked with when it came to his own safety, and the fact that his default facial expression these days seemed to fall somewhere between _kicked puppy_ and _I want to step in front of a bus_ didn't help her argument.

"The man lost his parents, his best friend fell to his death right in front of him, and after sacrificing himself to save the world, he wakes up to _this_ crapsack world where everything he sacrificed himself for is on the brink of happening again and everything and everyone he ever knew and loved is gone... And he can't even drown his sorrows with Jim, Jack or Jose like the rest of us. Believe me, Romanoff, Rogers has a death wish and then some."

Natasha looks up at him and Tony knows he's hit a nerve when her face reverts to its normal, passively blank _Black Widow gives nothing away_ stare. "We all have our issues, Tony."

"Sure, it's what makes such a great team, right?"

"Right!" Natasha replies, the faintest hint of a smile on her lips, which disappears as quickly as it came as she points to the vial again in Tony's hand.

"You're not a doctor, Stark. Do you know what to do with that stuff?"

"Umm, what part of genius do you people still not understand? Of course I do." Tony replies, which isn't a complete lie. He has a pretty good idea of how much it would take to drop the Hulk. He and Bruce have already whiled away many hours in the lab refining and distilling the effects of the drug, just in case. So in theory, he knows. He can calculate correct dosage to anesthetise a 6ft 2inch, 240lb Super Soldier with roughly four times the strength, stamina and metabolism of a regular human without stopping his heart, but it's only a theory. In practise, he has no idea if it will work. But he can't think like that. His team needs him. Steve needs him, and he's not going to lose another good man. He let Yinsen die, and Coulson... It flat out wasn't happening again.

"So are you going to take me to him, Romanoff. Or are we gonna stay here psychoanalyzing each other to death?"

Natasha nods, and taking a deep breath, she makes an attempt to get back to her feet, but the combination of exhaustion, blood loss and pain from the bullet wound in her shoulder makes that simple thing an almost Herculean task and she holds her arm out for Tony to help her up.

Surprised, Tony takes her hand, steadying her. He's never seen her like this. Natasha Romanoff was a consummate professional - in every sense of the word, and through everything they have been through, even their darkest hours, she's never shown him the slightest hint of weakness, fear or doubt. She was BFF with Clint, competitive with Thor, gentle with Bruce and mercilessly teased Steve into embarrassed blushes at every opportunity, but with him, it was all business. Tony always had the feeling that deep down, she didn't really think much of him and was only tolerating his presence at best. This was probably due to the fact that in her initial assessment of his entry into the Avengers Initiative, she had categorically stated that she didn't want him in the team, and he wasn't so great with rejection – whatever form it came in.

Of course, he would never tell her any of this, never mention how her frostiness gnawed at his edges. Why should he care if a sneaky little trickster like Natasha Romanoff didn't like him much, he was Tony Goddamn Stark. He was Iron Man. But he wasn't so good at lying to himself any more. Too much had happened. He did care. He cared deeply about all of them, even her. It had been a long time since he'd anything in his life that felt like family, he'd almost forgotten what the word meant, but now he had them, the idea that he could lose them again was a terrifying one.

"You okay?" He asks her, pulling a small leaf from her tangled hair and licking his thumb, he rubs a small smudge of blood from her chin. A smudge that could easily be a bloody fingerprint. It's only then does he notice the edge of a dressing poking out the neck of her combat suit. "What happened here?" he asks her, pointing to her shoulder.

"Bucky Barnes happened." She replies, waving him off. "It was high velocity round - it went right through."

"Jesus Christ, Natasha..."

"Its fine, I've had worse. But I think my bikini wearing days are now well and truly over."

"Yeah, I bet you'll look terrible in a bikini now." Tony replies, and Natasha smiles. "That's exactly what Steve said when I showed him where Barnes shot me the last time."

"Yeah, well law of averages and all that – I guess me and Cap have to agree sometimes."

They look at each other for a moment, all their unspoken fears suddenly hanging in the air between them.

"Everything's going to be okay, Nat... We're always okay. Right?"

Natasha nods. It's not much to hang on to, but it's all that he can give her and right then, it seems to be enough.

"You're just going to leave that there?" Natasha asks, gesturing towards War Machine as they walk past the armour, and Tony shrugs. "Sure, it might brighten the place up a little."


End file.
